Prayer By The Amazing One--Randi

[Doug]

This week's blog by James Randi, at www.randi.org, contains a "prayer" by Randi about the Virginia shooting:
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I’ll end this week with a prayer, inspired by President George Bush’s recent appeal to “a loving God” who he asked to “comfort those who are suffering today,” in response to the massacre of 32 persons at the Virginia Tech campus. My prayer:

To God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, God of Abraham, Jehovah, whoever or whatever:

God, You in Your omniscience – You know everything, past present and future – and also in Your omnipotence – You can do anything You want to do – why, 23 years ago, did You create this deluded man Seung-Hui Cho, then allow him to buy the guns, go to the Virginia Tech campus, and slaughter all those students and faculty? That took long-term planning, determined intention, and careful nurturing of Cho’s delusions and hatred, by You. God, what’s “loving” about that? Our President may labor under the delusion that such an act somehow shows Your “loving” nature, but in my admitted ignorance, I cannot see that. Help me to understand.

Or was this – forgive my suggestion, God – yet another failure of Your Intelligent Design, along with tobacco, cancer, spina bifida, and Crohn’s Disease?

A better plan, God – in my humble opinion – would have been to prevent that horrendous, senseless, slaughter, and then You would have had no reason to have to “comfort” those parents, friends, fellow-students and so many others who will now have to do without the delight of knowing these beautiful people. You see, God, You could have saved the lives – and futures – not only of those 32, but of Mr. Cho, as well! This deranged young man, angry and desperate, reacted to a society he felt was opposing him. He murdered 32 persons because he felt he had to, in answer to impulses he could not control. But You, Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, etc., etc., could have intervened – “omnipotent,” remember? – and there would be far less sorrow in our nation today.

Why did You do this to us? The figures show us that most of us believe in You, believe in Your loving nature, and appeal to You for Your comfort even after You have decided to allow tragedies such as this to happen; doesn’t that count? Personally, I don’t believe in You, but don’t the numbers count?

God, I’m sure that Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, speaks for You when he says, “…there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin." He calls Cho's recently-revealed writings, “just words,” which he says are “one of Satan’s tools to bring about Man’s destruction.” Now, this fits the Christian idea of demonic possession, which says that human existence is predicated on the narrative of Man’s Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden, and that wherever there is good, Satan is trying to destroy it.

Please, God, try to get Your act together, or there may be less people out there willing to appease a jealous, callous, vindictive, cruel, obviously insecure deity such as Yourself. And what would You do then?

God only knows…

Here.

[Dardedar]

DAR
Crohn's disease is a good example of intelligent design failure. I had a cousin die from that. Not good.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That's the problem with calling upon a personal god. No "big picture" here. All living things die. When they die, they leave behind other living beings who mourn them or get reminded of their own mortality or whatever is behind their feelings at that death. I mourn my kitty cat as much as I mourn my mother. (Maybe more - I didn't have to "be strong" during Merlin's illness as I had to during Mom's.) I wish they'd been around longer - that's personal. I don't know what "good" (if any) will come from Mom or Merlin dying when they did - and I probably won't - but that doesn't mean there wasn't any. I don't know what "good" (if any) will result from this tragedy at VA Tech. That doesn't mean there won't be any. The American insistance that there is nothing worse than death (especially for the unborn) is scarier to me than the deaths themselves.

[ChristianLoeschel]

DISCLAIMER: Take this as cynically and morbidly humorous as it is meant.

God clearly recognized the suffering of so many due to overpopulation of this planet. Just imagine if we had oh...half the people just up and die! Starvation might not be as big an issue because theres more food! Global warming? Hell with half the people gone, we could all drive Hummers and still emit less greenhouse gases!

So you see, disease, murder, all that is just in our best interest.